After four anxious
days, only the slimmest of details has come to light in a police
standoff with an Alabama man who is accused of holding a 5-year-old boy
hostage in a bunker, a sign of just how delicate the negotiations are.

Police have used a ventilation
pipe to the underground bunker to talk to the man and deliver the boy
medication for his emotional disorders, but they have not revealed how
often they are in touch or what the conversations have been about. And authorities
waited until Friday — four days after the siege began — to confirm what
was widely known in this age of instant communication: The man accused
of killing a school bus driver and abducting the boy Tuesday was
65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, a Vietnam-era veteran who was known to neighbors as a menacing figure.

Friday, February 1, 2013

A student opened fire at his middle school Thursday afternoon,
wounding a 14-year-old in the neck before an armed officer working at
the school was able to get the gun away, police said.

Multiple
shots were fired in the courtyard of Price Middle School just south of
downtown about 1:50 p.m. and the one boy was hit, Atlanta Police Chief
George Turner said. In the aftermath, a teacher received minor cuts, he
said.

The wounded boy was taken "alert, conscious and
breathing" to Grady Memorial Hospital, said police spokesman Carlos
Campos. Grady Heath System Spokeswoman Denise Simpson said the teen had
been discharged from the hospital Thursday night. Campos said charges
against the shooter were pending.

The gun rights folks are right about one thing, armed guards in schools can be a good thing. The only problem is they offer that as the only solution while gun control folks want to know where a 14-year-old got a gun and what can be done to prevent that in the future.

DEFINING VIOLENT CRIME =====

United Kingdom:

“Violent crime
contains a wide range of offences, from minor assaults such as pushing
and shoving that result in no physical harm through to serious incidents
of wounding and murder. Around a half of violent incidents identified
by both BCS and police statistics involve no injury to the victim.”(THOSB – CEW, page 17, paragraph 1.)

United States:

“In the FBI’s
Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime is composed of four
offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery,
and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program
as those offenses which involve force or threat of force.” (FBI – CUS – Violent Crime)

We can clearly see here there is quite a
large difference in how both countries report and assess what qualifies
as “violent crime”. The UK’s approach seems to be a lot more
encompassing in scope and adds to its definition of “violent crime”
offences which are not matched by its US counterpart. This raises the
obvious question of whether UK violent crime rates can be said to be
higher simply because things considered “violent crime” in the UK are
not so in the US. One example is “assault”, all forms of which are
considered “violent” in the UK, whereas in the US only “aggravated” is
considered violent. A further example revolves around sexual offences,
only “forcible” rape featuring in the US definition, while the UK
definition includes rape and any and all forms of sexual assault.

Therefore, it becomes practically
impossible to draw any objective comparison between the two, unless one
trawls through the various definitions of crimes that can be said to be
the same in definition and execution in the UK and the US. I’ve actually
done this, and by going through the PRC and FBI – CUS it is possible, I
believe, to find a number of crimes which I think are fairly indicative
of the prevalence of “violence” in either country. To this end, I have isolated robbery, burglary, homicide / murder, knife crime, fatal shootings, rape of a female, grievous bodily harm / aggravated assault and theft of a vehicle in order to give us a fair idea of which country is more “violent.” The relevant definitions and rates for each crime will be presented below in their own sections.

However, before we proceed onto that
stage, I thought it would be useful to present the actual figures of
“violent crime rates” for both countries that has spurned this research
in the first place, and the mathematics involved in calculating the
figures and statistics for each relevant isolated crime.

Speaking into a 4-inch-wide ventilation pipe, hostage negotiators
tried Thursday to talk a man into releasing a kindergartener and ending a
standoff in an underground bunker that stretched into its third day.The
man identified by multiple neighbors and witnesses as 65-year-old
retired truck driver Jimmy Lee Dykes was accused of pulling the boy from
a school bus on Tuesday and killing the driver. The pair was holed up
in a small room on his property that authorities compared to tornado
shelters common in the area.James Arrington, police
chief of the neighboring town of Pinckard, said the shelter was about 4
feet underground, with about 6-by-8 feet of floor space and a PVC pipe
that negotiators were speaking through.
Court records showed Dykes was arrested in

Florida in 1995 for improper
exhibition of a weapon, but the misdemeanor was dismissed. The
circumstances of the arrest were not detailed in his criminal record. He
was also arrested for marijuana possession in 2000.

As we mentioned the other day, this dangerously anti-social character was a lawful gun owner. I say we need to raise the bar a tiny bit on who can legally own guns.

Wednesday's shooting in an office complex in north-central Phoenix will claim a second life, and police say a body found Thursday morning in a shopping center here is the suspect.Shooting victim Mark Hummels, a partner at Phoenix law firm Osborn Maledon, "will not survive from the shooting," according to a statement from the firm. Hummels was shot in the neck and back.Arthur Douglas Harmon, 70, whose body was found Thursday, appears to
have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Phoenix Police Sgt. Steve
Martos said. Harmon's vehicle, a rented Kia Optima, also was found in
the area."The body discovered in Mesa this morning has been
identified as Arthur Douglas Harmon, the suspect in yesterday's
shooting," Phoenix Police Sgt. Tommy Thompson said Thursday in a news
release. Harmon had not been seen since fleeing the north-central
Phoenix office complex where he was accused of shooting two men and
another bystander following a pre-litigation meeting.

Not only was this guy a lawful gun owner, in all probability, but he enjoyed Constitutional Carry. It makes you wonder how many walking time bombs there are in Arizona carrying concealed guns legally.

LEAHY: Do you still, as you did in 1999, still support mandatory background checks at gun shows? Yes or no?LAPIERRE: We supported the National Instant Check System on dealers. I
— we were here when Senator Birch Bayh, one of your colleagues, held
the hearings in terms of who would be a dealer and who would be required
to have a license. If you did it for livelihood and profit, yes. If you
were a hobbyist, then no.LEAHY: Let’s make — let’s make it easier, though. I’m talking about
gun shows. Should we have mandatory background checks at gun shows for
sales of weapons?LAPIERRE: If you’re a dealer, that’s already the law. If you’re talking…LEAHY: That’s not my question. Please, Mr. LaPierre, I’m not trying
to play games here. But, if you could, just answer my question.LAPIERRE: Senator, I do not believe the way the law is working now,
unfortunately, that it does any good to extend the law to private sales
between hobbyists and collectors.LEAHY: OK, so you do not support mandatory background checks in all instances at gun shows?LAPIERRE: We do not, because the fact is, the law right now is a
failure the way it’s working. The fact is, you have 76,000-some people
that have been denied under the present law. Only 44 were prosecuted.
You’re letting them go. They’re walking the streets.

Read the exchange again. When LaPierre eventually gets to the point
of answering the question, after three attempts by Leahy, the head of
the NRA has changed the subject. Instead of talking about non-dealer gun
show sales, he starts talking about the failure of the federal
government to prosecute criminals after they have been denied an
opportunity to purchase a gun. Because of this, he says, the background
system of dealers, which he still supports,
failing, and therefore should not be extended. The argument is not
entirely logical. (He admits the dealer checks are effective in
preventing gun sales, even if criminals are not prosecuted for their
attempts.) But it is textbook LaPierre.

National Rifle Association President David Keene
signaled Thursday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat who
has enjoyed the powerful gun lobby's support in the past, could prove
pivotal in the heated debate over gun control.

Reid has found himself in a delicate position as he tries to navigate
the desires of many members of his pro-gun rights Nevada constituency
and the White House and members of his caucus' intensified push over gun
control. As Senate majority leader, Reid has great influence to speed
or slow the consideration of legislation on Capitol Hill.

"He's under incredible pressure right now because he's got, as any
member of Congress or senator does, he's got his own beliefs. He's got
the views and the demands of his constituents on the one hand and the
pressure he faces from party leaders and his president on the other,"
Keene told journalists at a Christian Science Monitor sponsored
breakfast Thursday. "So where Harry Reid ends up in this debate is
anybody's guess and I think that's one of the guessing games that's
going on around Washington now."

Reid has twice opposed the assault weapons ban back in 1992 and 2004,
has a B rating by the NRA for his pro-gun rights voting record and
since 2008 has received just shy of $8,450 from several gun lobbies
according to an analysis of campaign contributions from the Center for
Responsive Politics.

It doesn't seem to me that $8,000 in contributions should be a deciding factor. Perhaps Reid is a true believer - many from Nevada are.

Some gun nuts often try to rile me on Facebook. In their world, the 2nd Amendment permits NO regulation of guns of any kind. People like me and Antonin Scalia who think it DOES permit some sensible rules — such as background checks prior to purchase — are often derided. Gotta love this comment today on such a post:

I wish the people that don't like or want guns would go back to Europe or wherever their family came from. This is why we started this country

Thursday, January 31, 2013

A gunman holed up in a bunker with a 5-year-old hostage kept law
officers at bay Wednesday in an all-night, all-day standoff that began
when he killed a school bus driver and dragged the boy away, authorities
said.

SWAT teams took up positions around the gunman's rural property and
police negotiators tried to win the kindergartener's safe release.

The situation remained unchanged late Wednesday, with
negotiations ongoing, Alabama State Trooper Charles Dysart told a news
conference. He said no additional information would be released until
Thursday morning.

The gunman, identified by neighbors as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 65-year-old
retired truck driver, was known around the neighborhood as a menacing
figure who once beat a dog to death with a lead pipe, threatened to
shoot children for setting foot on his property and patrolled his yard
at night with a flashlight and a shotgun.

U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (IL-05)
will reintroduce the Trafficking Reduction and Criminal Enforcement
(TRACE) Act, which cracks down on the illegal gun market by improving
gun tracking data. The bill also repeals the Tiahrt Amendments, which
hamper law enforcement’s pursuit of criminals who buy and sell illegal
guns.

“The TRACE Act is the type of commonsense gun control reform we need
to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people,” said
Rep. Quigley. “Our law enforcement officials face a sea of illegal
weapons flooding our streets, but the TRACE Act will close the loopholes
that allow criminals to obtain illicit guns and choke off the supply to
traffickers.”

“For nearly a decade, the Tiahrt restrictions have hampered our
nation’s law enforcement officials and kept the public in the dark about
gun traffickers. By removing these dangerous restrictions, this bill
goes a long way toward restoring access to critical gun data that can
help protect our communities,” said Mark Glaze, Director of the
bipartisan coalition Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

“I want to thank Congressman Quigley for his continued efforts in the
fight to end gun violence in America, and I urge lawmakers on both
sides of the aisle to follow his lead,” Glaze continued.

"Congressman Quigley is to be commended for his leadership on this
issue," said Dan Gross, President of the Brady Campaign. "Now more than
ever, we need leaders like Congressman Quigley who can stand up and help
us to fight for the comprehensive proposals put forth by the White
House. There is no one solution to this epidemic of violence but the
TRACE Act is an important piece of that effort. We applaud the
Congressman for introducing it now."

While criminals often obtain guns on the black market, those guns generally originate from licensed dealers.

Let's repeat that last idea. Almost all guns in criminal hands started out the legal property of someone. It's not important if criminals buy guns on the black market from other criminals, what's important is how those guns moved from lawful ownership to criminal.

Gun control is generally a tough sell in Pennsylvania -
a Republican-ruled state with a large rural population - but a new poll
suggests strong support for some measures, especially universal
background checks on gun buyers.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday
found that voters in the state support requiring background checks for
all gun purchases by a margin of 95 to 5.

Six in 10 voters in the Keystone State also favor a
nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons, while nearly as many
support a ban on the sale of magazines with more than 10 rounds, the
poll found.

Leahy acknowledged the deep ideological divide inside his panel, but
also asserts that Judiciary “has done more legislation than just about
any other committee” under his leadership.

Leahy said he will be pushing for an expansion of background checks
on all gun sales, a proposal that appears to have bipartisan Senate
support in the Senate and broader appeal to the American public in the
wake of the Newtown, Conn. shooting.

The Vermont Democrat, though, pointedly didn’t mention the assault weapons ban.“I just don’t understand how anyone could be against universal
background checks,” Leahy said in an interview. “We need to close the
loopholes” from private gun sales or weapon purchases at gun shows.

To me this is the one issue that really shows the gun-rights advocates for what they are. We've heard all the excuses, from private citizens don't have access to the NICS system, to people should be allowed to do what they want with their property. All of it's nonsense.

The fact is, gun rights fanatics care only about gun rights. They don't care if guns will flow more easily into the criminal world or if more people will be killed as a result. Self-centered in the extreme, they care only for their own convenience and in never giving in an inch in the battle for their so-called rights.

Ah, that old saw. Tough gun laws don’t stop crime,
because – Chicago! Only Mamet,
unlike most who repeat this trope, hilariously misfires by including
Washington, D.C. in the gun-laws-equal-more-crime argument. As it happens, the
2012 murder rate in the nation’s capital was the
lowest it’s been since 1963.But he is correct that the murder rate spiked in
Chicago last year. It probably has nothing to do with the city’s “tough” gun
laws, though; and, in fact, the opposite may be the case. As
I’ve explained before, Chicago had a handgun ban in place until the U.S.
Supreme Court struck it down in 2010.Meanwhile, according to the 2011 Chicago
Murder Analysis published by the Chicago Police Department
(.pdf file), the city’s murder rate declined more or less steadily from well
over 900 murders a year in the early 1990s to around 435 murders per year in
2010 and 2011. 2011 Chicago Murder Analysis, p. 4. So, the facts, Dave, are these: Chicago’s
murder rate declined by more than half from the early 1990s to 2010, all while
the city’s handgun ban was in effect; but two and a half years after the
handgun ban was stricken down, Chicago’s murder rate ticked up by about 17% (from
433 in 2011 to 506
in 2012). Whether or not the recent increase in Chicago’s murders is related
to the Court striking down the city’s handgun ban, you simply can’t argue that the
opposite is true, because the murder rate plummeted under even tougher gun laws than Chicago has today.
Facts, man. They always get in the way of the
narrative.

Imagine you’re a playwright whose chief talent is
finding creative ways to use the word “fuck.” Imagine, too, that the more you
use the word “fuck,” the richer you become. And the richer you become, the
further removed you are from reality. Imagine you become richer and richer and
further and further removed from reality, till you morph into one of your own
characters, hurling invective into the void of cyberspace.

You’ve just become David Mamet.
Mamet, who is, let’s face it, a fucking genius when
it comes to saying “fuck,” is considerably less talented when it comes to
understanding American history. And when it comes to understanding the U.S.
Constitution, well, he’s a fucking idiot. On those topics, he has all the
analytical skills of an eleven year old boy obsessed with comic books and
superheroes – not altogether unlike the National Rifle Association’s Wayne
LaPierre, who responded to the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School thusly:
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is
a good guy with a gun.”

Today, Mamet provided a sterling example his
pre-adolescent, superhero-worshipping take on our history and our Constitution
in an article entitled “Gun
Laws And The Fools Of Chelm,” on Newsweek’s Daily Beast website. Mamet’s piece is comical
both in terms of it’s razor-thin analysis (“Karl Marx summed up Communism as
‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’”) and its
desperate attempt to appear intellectual (“This is a chillingly familiar set of
grievances; and its recrudescence was foreseen by the Founders”); but its most
damnable feature is that it’s utterly devoid of facts. Mamet doesn’t cite or
link to a single source anywhere in the piece, even when he quotes the Declaration
Of Independence. (See, that wasn’t so hard.)

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The urban dictionary refers to gun porn as the fetish images of guns lit like porn models (no gender or orientation specified), or as exaggerated gore and violence in the portrayal of guns. The way I'm using the term here it is the connection between guns and the sexuality of guys who aren't getting any - or not what they want, and their desire for firearms to make them feel manly and powerful, and therefore appealing to women who want them with guns but not without them.

Actually, though, the
Civil War long ago resolved the question of whether a state or a state
official can nullify or refuse to comply with federal law. Laws passed
by Congress are, as the Constitution states and as the war validated,
“the supreme law of the land.” Further, the Constitution provides that
“Judges in every state shall be bound thereby.” So, too, are state
legislators who swear, as part of their oath of office, to uphold and
defend the Constitution of the United States.

Laws passed by Congress cannot be ignored
by state officials, whether they like the laws or not. But any law
deemed to violate the liberties of the people or the sovereignty of the
state may be challenged through the courts.

Interesting. The professor indroduced that observation after referencing some of the states that are rushing to pass legislation that they will not be bound by future gun laws.

Rep. Blackburn told us recently what her first priority is, now it seems her second priority is attacking the president. It's just plain rude to accuse someone of being a liar, especially, as Roland Martin pointed out, it's not important whether the president does skeet shooting regularly or not.

The
so-called gun show loophole which allows guns to be sold without a
background check allowed private dealers to effectively hijack a weekend
effort by Seattle police to get guns off the street.Following the mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut last month, Seattle raised $120,000 to hold the first gun buyback effort in 20 years at a downtown parking lot on Saturday.The plan was to trade gift cards for guns that would later be
destroyed, but a number of dealers set up a mini-gun show just a block
away in a effort to buy up the guns and keep them in circulation.

“I pay cash, I don’t give Amazon gift cards,” one dealer told a gun seller in video captured by KING. “It’s a historical firearm, I would hate to see it get destroyed,” a
buyer remarked to another gun owner. “I’ll give you $100 cash for it.”

“I would rather see it turned back into the gun community here and used to promote shooting sports,” a dealer explained to KING.

Mason Vranish bought a rocket launcher off of a man who had come to
trade it for a gift card, but police confiscated the weapon on the
suspicion that it had been stolen from the U.S. military.

The National Rifle Association has released the text of NRA head Wayne LaPierre’s Senate testimony a day early.

And, unsurprisingly, he’s taking a defiant tone.

Perhaps most interestingly, LaPierre is prepared to attack not just
the proposed assault weapons ban, but also the universal background
checks that are perhaps the least controversial aspect of the current debate and the early focus of the White House.“And when it comes to the issue of background checks, let’s be
honest: Background checks will never be ‘universal,’ because criminals
will never submit to them,” LaPierre will say.

In this report of the upcoming statement by Wayne La Pierre, not only does he express the NRA's refusal to cooperate on background checks, but he does it in a less-than-honest way. The fact that criminals won't cooperate has nothing to do with it. By saying that, he attempts to paint gun control folks with the brush of stupidity, as if we really think criminals will be affected. Plus he deflects attention from the fact that law-abiding gun owners, who would be affected, are the source of criminal guns. In fact, private sales without background checks is one of the four ways in which guns move from lawful ownership into the black market.

Continuing in his mendacious way, La Pierre goes on to lament the mental health system and the criminal justice system, more deflection from the first main problem which is gun availability to unfit people.

Is it any wonder that gun rights advocates are so difficult to reason with? They have Wayne La Pierre showing them the way.

Despite its reputation as a state with strong gun control laws,
Massachusetts has for more than a decade failed to provide the FBI with
mental health reports on people seeking to buy guns, the result of a
state law prohibiting such sharing. Massachusetts has submitted just one
mental health record to the federal database since 1999, a period in
which the FBI has processed 1.6 million background checks of state
residents who seek to buy guns from federally licensed dealers.

Guess who's responsible for the laws which prevent states from entering this vital information into the federal data base? That's right, the NRA and the gun lobby. Who else?

Now, in order to deflect attention from the problem of gun availability, they point fingers at the failure of the mental health system.

Stephen King has entranced millions with tales of dread but his latest
volume will read like a horror only to the National Rifle Association
and other gun-rights advocates. The best-selling author made an
unexpected charge into the national debate on gun violence on Friday
with a passionate, angry essay pleading for reform.

King, who
owns three handguns, aimed the expletive-peppered polemic at fellow
gun-owners, calling on them to support a ban on automatic and
semi-automatic weapons in the wake of the December shooting at Sandy
Hook elementary school which left 20 children and six adults dead.

"Autos
and semi-autos are weapons of mass destruction. When lunatics want to
make war on the unarmed and unprepared, these are the weapons they use,"
King wrote.

He said blanket opposition to gun control was less
about defending the second amendment of the US constitution than "a
stubborn desire to hold onto what they have, and to hell with the
collateral damage". He added: "If that's the case, let me suggest that
'fuck you, Jack, I'm okay' is not a tenable position, morally speaking."

I find it shocking and unbelievable that apparently Stephen Kind doesn't know what semi-auto means. Is that possible? I like the rest of what he says very much. How about you?

The
National Rifle Association is misrepresenting the Second Amendment and
the men who created it. The founders never intended the amendment as
justification for citizens to make war on their government.

George
Washington, desperate to retire to Mount Vernon, only agreed to attend
the Constitutional Convention because of his concerns about the
inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation. The weak Continental
Congress and its inability to supply his army’s needs throughout the war
and his distress over Shays’ short-lived rebellion in Massachusetts
convinced him the country needed a strong central government to hold the
states together. James Madison, after an exhaustive study of
governmental systems throughout history, reached the same conclusions by
the time the two men arrived in Philadelphia.

They
hoped for a standing army capable of fending off any new challenges.
When it became apparent the nation couldn’t afford it, they decided to
rely on a militia system. Every home would keep a musket in working
order and be ready to come to the nation’s defense if needed.

Jose de la Trinidad,
a 36-year-old father of two, was shot Nov. 10 by deputies who believed
he was reaching for a weapon following a police pursuit. But family
members and a witness to the shooting said that De la Trinidad, who was
unarmed, was complying with deputies and had his hands above his head
when he was shot.De la Trinidad was shot five times in the upper and lower back, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's report
dated Nov. 13. The report describes four of those wounds as fatal. He
was also shot in the right forearm and right hip, with both shots
entering from behind, the report found.

“Here's a man who complied, did what he was supposed to, and was
gunned down by trigger-happy deputies,” said Arnoldo Casillas, the
family’s attorney, who provided a copy of the autopsy report to The
Times. He said he plans to file a lawsuit against the sheriff’s
department.This story initially said that the two deputies involved in the shooting
were place on administrative leave immediately following the shooting.
They were taken off patrol and returned to duty five days later.

I wonder if we'll hear that old justification from the gun-rights crowd that shooting a guy in the back is sometimes necessary because he could pull a gun real quick and fire over his shoulder as he's running away.

Monday, January 28, 2013

An Iowa gun dealer was hospitalized after he accidentally
shot himself in the hand before a gun show Friday afternoon at the Iowa
State Fairgrounds.
The 54-year-old St. Charles resident told police he was showing off a
.25 caliber pistol he thought was unloaded when he slid the action of
the gun causing it to fire. The bullet went through his left palm,
according to a Polk County Sheriff’s report.

Writing on Taylor Marsh, Joyce Arnold asks, seeing as how this is the 4th accidental shooting at a gun show since Gun Appreciation Day:

Question: I wonder if things like this happen regularly, or is it just
being reported now, because of the actual, deadly mass shootings forcing
attention?

A Hamilton County grand jury has chosen not to indict a grandfather
after his 2-year-old grandson accidentally shot himself with the man's
pistol.

The Hamilton County District Attorney's Office had pursued a charge
of criminally negligent homicide against Stan Nowell. The grand jury
last week issued a no true bill, meaning they did not believe there was
enough evidence against Nowell to take the case to trial.

"They have to determine probable cause to issue the indictment, and
they didn't find that in this case," Executive Assistant District
Attorney Neal Pinkston told the Chattanooga Times Free Press
http://bit.ly/X3W9yt.

Two-year-old Brennan Nowell shot himself on Dec. 20 after his grandfather left a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol on a chair.

We're not jumping to rash conclusions in this case. The unconscionable negligence of grandpa was been swept under the carpet. He will not he held accountable for his actions, and worse yet, he will continue to own guns and retain his gun rights.

A shining example of a Tennessee lawful gun owner if ever there were one.

Though its gun ownership rates are tiny compared to the United
States, Japan has more than 120,000 registered gun owners and more than
400,000 registered firearms. So why is there so little gun violence?

"We have a very different way of looking at guns in
Japan than people in the United States," said Tsutomu Uchida, who runs
the Kanagawa Ohi Shooting Range, an Olympic-style training center for
rifle enthusiasts. "In the U.S., people believe they have a right to own
a gun. In Japan, we don't have that right. So our point of departure is
completely different."

Treating gun ownership as a privilege and not a right leads to some important policy differences.First, anyone who wants to get a gun must
demonstrate a valid reason why they should be allowed to do so. Under
longstanding Japanese policy, there is no good reason why any civilian
should have a handgun, so - aside from a few dozen accomplished
competitive shooters - they are completely banned.

Virtually all handgun-related crime is attributable
to gangsters, who obtain them on the black market. But such crime is
extremely rare and when it does occur, police crack down hard on
whatever gang is involved, so even gangsters see it as a last-ditch
option.

Rifle ownership is allowed for the general public, but tightly controlled.

Applicants first must go to their local police
station and declare their intent. After a lecture and a written test
comes range training, then a background check. Police likely will even
talk to the applicant's neighbors to see if he or she is known to have a
temper, financial troubles or an unstable household. A doctor must sign
a form saying the applicant has not been institutionalized and is not
epileptic, depressed, schizophrenic, alcoholic or addicted to drugs.

Gun owners must tell the police where in the home
the gun will be stored. It must be kept under lock and key, must be kept
separate from ammunition, and preferably chained down. It's legal to
transport a gun in the trunk of a car to get to 1 of the country's few
shooting ranges, but if the driver steps away from the vehicle and gets
caught, that's a violation.

The city broke a nine-day murder-free streak last night when a man
was found dead in the basement of a Queens apartment complex, police
said.

The 20-year-old victim, whose name was not released, had been shot in the head.

He was found just after 6 p.m. in a building in the LeFrak City complex in Corona.

The
slaying was the first in the city since Jan. 16, when Jennifer Rivera,
20, and her uncle, Jason Rivera, 30, were gunned down execution-style
while sitting a parked car in The Bronx.

The nine days without
murders came amid brutally low temperatures that cops say usually keeps
criminals indoors — and homicides and other street crime to a minimum.

“Jack Frost is the policeman’s best friend,” quipped an NYPD source.

Last year saw just 414 homicides — a record chalked up to concentrating police operations in high-crime areas.

Even last year's record low number of murders averaged out to more than one a day. So, no murders for nine days is a big deal. Maybe this year will be another record low. The Post article attributes it to police procedures, but I can't help thinking that the gun laws have something to do with it too.

More right wing extremist efforts to promote Vigilantism

Want to bet this guy gets a lot of NRA and related money? If he can't do
his job he should get down off his high horse, and lead it into the
sunset, making room for someone who is competent to do the job. This is
what the right tries to do when it cuts spending on essential services
like law enforcement in the name of smaller government, at the same time
they are generous in handing out corporate welfare, and taxing the rich
less. It is just one more way to gin up fear, sell guns, and profit one
of their core special interests. This is NOT good government, it is an attempt at legislating bloody anarchy.

Plymouth Police say a man is in the hospital after he accidentally shot himself inside a Rainbow Foods Sunday afternoon.

The shooting occurred inside the bathroom of the grocery store. The man suffered a non-life threatening injury to his lower leg.

Police are not sure how the gun discharged. There is no indication that this is anything other than an accident.

No one else was injured. Police say the man has a conceal and carry permit.

He probably went to the Eddie Eagle Program as a kid and then started shooting at a very young age. He may have had military experience and several firearms safety training courses along the way.

Still he turned out to be so irresponsible and dangerous with his gun that on this particular day, like many before it, he violated one or more of the 4 Rules of Gun Safety. The difference this time was he put a bullet in his leg.

USA --(Ammoland.com)-Obviously,
there is a lot of discussion right now about changes to our gun laws as
a result of the Newtown, Connecticut tragedy.

This article is not about gun control or the Second Amendment, but
rather about removing toxic materials from hunting ammunition and
fishing tackle.

For the past decade there has been debate over regulation or
restrictions on the use of lead ammunition for hunting activities that
cause lead exposure and poisoning for birds and other wildlife.

The
effectiveness, cost and availability of copper and other non-lead
hunting ammunition has dramatically improved in recent years. Increasing
numbers of hunters are switching to non-lead rounds because they are
better for hunting, better for wildlife, and safer for hunters and their
families.

Almost three hundred groups from around the country have joined the
Center for Biological Diversity’s call to finally phase lead out of lead
hunting ammunition. For the sake of people, wildlife and a lead-free
environment, it’s time to make this happen.

Let’s be clear about what this is, and isn’t, about. This has nothing
to do with restricting hunting or the Second Amendment. Our
organization has hunters and non-hunters as members. Many hunting groups
are promoting non-lead ammunition. The legal effort to restrict lead in
hunting ammunition and fishing equipment has everything to do with
getting toxic lead out of our environment and nothing to do with
restrictions on hunting and fishing. Nothing.

There are good reasons we took lead out of gasoline,
plumbing, house paints and children’s toys! Lead is an extremely toxic
material that is dangerous at almost any level to all life forms.

Fortunately, there are proven, effective alternatives to lead for
nearly every caliber of ammunition used in hunting. A recent scientific
article, Lead-Free Hunting Rifle Ammunition: Product Availability, Price, Effectiveness, and Role in Global Wildlife Conservation, found that:

Lead-free bullets are made in 35 calibers and 51 rifle cartridge designations;

37 companies distribute lead-free bullets internationally;

There is no major difference in the retail price of equivalent lead-free and lead-core ammunition for most popular calibers;

Lead-free ammunition has set bench-mark standards for accuracy, lethality and safety.

(Vernon George Thomas, Ambio: A Journal of the Human Environment, 4 January 2013).

Thousands of
people, many holding signs with names of gun violence victims and
messages such as "Ban Assault Weapons Now," joined a rally for gun
control on Saturday, marching from the Capitol to the Washington
Monument.

Leading the crowd were marchers
with "We Are Sandy Hook" signs, paying tribute to victims of the
December school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Washington Mayor Vincent Gray
and other city officials marched alongside them. The crowd stretched
for at least two blocks along Constitution Avenue.

On Jan. 24, Sen.
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced S. 150, her long-anticipated bill
to ban "assault weapons" and "large" magazines. Contrary to media
claims that Feinstein wants to "reinstate" the 1994 ban, the bill will
go much further toward her stated long-term goal of gun confiscation,
imposing a host of absurdly broad definitions and onerous restrictions:

Ban
the sale, transfer, manufacture or importation of 157 named firearms.
Presumably, these were chosen by looking at pictures, as Sen. Feinstein
has said she did before introducing her first legislation on the issue
in 1993.

You know how you can tell when the NRA is lying? Well, lips moving isn't really gonna work here, but you know what I mean.

They use "gun confiscations" in the broadest possible sense to conjure up frightening images of jack-booted government officials going door-to-door. Of course Sen. Feinstein never said any such thing.

Thinking people know this, but the NRA minions don't think. They just repeat - and repeat.

The other lie is about choosing the weapons to be prohibited by "looking at pictures." The inference is that Diane Feinstein is a ditzy broad who knows nothing about guns and picked out the bad ones ONLY by their appearance. This is another oft-repeated lie. Do they really think there were no advisors of any kind? Do they really think that as a gun owner herself, the Senator didn't know just a little bit about guns?

Of course they know better, but like the wrong party in any argument, they need to resort to lies and tricky language to hold their own.